Sometimes I wake up in the morning without the knot in my chest but I feel off balance so I try to put it back there, feel off balance like tilted bottles of triple sec sliding down my throat, feel off balance like waking up in a place I don't recognize.
Sometimes I smile when I'm sad but I'm scared my demons will feel betrayed so I try to hide it, scared to stare into the sun for too long, scared I'm not going to be able to feel anything anymore if I lose that.
Sometimes I decide I want to love myself again but I remember how I broke my heart before and I put walls up so I don't get hurt again, put walls up so I won't be surprised when I'm still lonely this time next year, put walls up so when I fail I can at least say I was never really trying.
Sometimes I think I'm getting better but I don't know where that leaves me so I think myself out of it, think myself into watercolor guilt, think myself into dying.

Jesus Christ I swear I'm trying it's just not working, everything keeps falling through, keeps slipping through, and maybe I'm not doing this right, maybe I'm just making mistakes, but I don't even know where to start, I'm trying to take it one step at a time but everything happens all at once and I'm not fast enough, I'm not strong enough to carry on like this, my feet are tired and I don't care enough to try any harder, I'm giving up, I'm sorry

I have been learning how to die,
have prepared myself at every
intersection or doctor's office,
have been whispering
Good Bye
like last words,
every time.

I have been learning how to be a corpse,
have been rotting from the
inside out,
have been peeling away the decaying flesh
beside my fingernails,
on the inside of my lip,
around the wounds that I know will never get the chance to heal now.

I have been learning how to be a skeleton,
have been leaving empty spaces
between ribs
and
vertebrae,
have been training myself to lie still
in small, dark places.

I have been learning how to be a ghost,
have haunted my own
home,
have found solace
in inhabiting this body
that I claim to belong in,
I have been learning how to regret.

You like it, don't you? You hate yourself and you love that about you, you love your brooding pain, the way you can't say your own name without choking. You love to see how close to the bottom you can get before you start gasping for air, you want to swallow salt water, let it fill your lungs like tar, you want them to miss you, want them to feel guilty, want him to love your pain as much as you do, want him to appreciate how well you can destroy things, want his vision to be distorted by the scars on your wrists, want him to kiss them, want him to feed your pain. You want troubled girl meets nice boy, want him to try to save her, want her to die anyways, want him to be troubled boy to meet nice girl, want her to try to save him, want him to die anyways, want to start a cycle, want the world to resonate with the aching hollowness of your last words, want everyone to know how much you're hurting, how strong you are for still being here, for still fighting, but you're not fighting, are you? You gave up a long time ago and aside from the adrenaline attacks of optimism you are weak, but they will never know this, they cannot know this, they have to believe that you're an inspiration, that you fought as hard as you could but it wasn't enough, that you never gave in, that your dying breath was a whisper of purity, that you are a godsend, an idol to be worshipped, you are the messiah. You are so brave.

I hope you don't understand me,
hope I remain something mysterious to you,
hope you romanticize me into something complex rather than a body and a series of chemical reactions,
I hope I can fool you into believing that I mean more than what I say,
hope you write about me and analyze it to find some sort of answer,
hope you look for symbolism in the way I do my makeup,
hope you think me into a work of art and spill it from your veins,
I hope I burn on the way back out,
hope you have scars on your fingers from trying to dissect me,
hope I make you nervous,
hope you think about how to phrase things before you say them around me,
hope you ask every question strategically,
hope you think I know exactly what you're up to,
I hope you play word games with me to see how my mind works,
hope you still can't grasp it,
hope I'm always close enough to touch but not to get a firm grip on,
hope you dig yourself into a hole walking in circles to get a better view of me,
hope you never say my name for fear of manifesting the sound incorrectly,
hope you have no ******* clue what any of this means,
I hope you never understand me

if I promise I don't love you can you hold me again
can you trace your fingers over my thigh and pretend it's not a sin
can you hold my hand and pretend that it isn't too cold
like we used to do before I got too sad and you got too old
can you kiss my neck like you just want to touch me
can you press my head to your chest so I can feel your heartbeat
if I promise I don't love you will you tell me that you love me

there is a noose hanging in my
throat
and when I try to tell you I love you
it tangles around the words and
I start to choke
so I keep my mouth shut

and this is not to say that I do not love you but
love doesn't feel like a blessing anymore,
it feels like guilt,
it feels like another promise that
I will not be able to keep, it feels like
an apology that my lips will never speak.

when I try to tell you I love you
I remind myself that
you don't want me to anymore,
remind myself that
this is not what you want to hear from me,
remind myself that
you will not say it back.

when I try to tell you I love you it is not because
I think you need to hear it,
it is because
I want to say it,
it is because
that word has been eating a hole in the pit of my stomach for
too long,
it is because when I
repeat a word too many times
it stops sounding like one
so I'm hoping that if I say it out loud it will
regain its meaning,
it is because I do not know if it's true and
I want you to tell me it is,
it is because I am
selfish
and this is entirely for my own
benefit and/or destruction

and I am sorry because
when I tell you I love you it will be
the last thing I say to you.

I was trying to write something including the line
it kissed with no desire to heal what it had broken
and so I wrote
it kissed with no desire to heal what it had broken
but I didn't know what
it
was so I changed
it
to
he
and I wrote that
he kissed with no desire to heal what he had broken
but I thought about
him
and I thought about what
he
had done and I thought about kissing
him
and the things that were broken but not healed and so I changed
he
to
I
and I wrote that
I kissed with no desire to heal what I had broken
and I payed attention to the broken pieces that
I
had created and the people that
I
had kissed and I thought about what
I
desired and never have
I
tried to heal what
I
have broken.

I haven't written poetry
since the night with all the blood
because I'm afraid that the demons
might crawl out from underneath my fingernails
and singe the edges of my paper with their hellfire
and I am trying to get better,
I swear I am,
it's just hard when
I can't tell my own voice apart from
the monsters in my head.

I want you to tell me you love me but I know you won't I texted you drunk because I know it's the only time I can talk to you these days I miss you because we've both changed so much it's like we don't even know each other and you said we have more in common than you and my brother ever did and that's so ******* depressing because you two were best friends and I loved it when you two were friends because we could hang out and I could leave whenever I wanted and I miss that but you hardly talk anymore and it's been seven ******* years and now is when you decide to part ways but it's been too long and I miss you and I'm sorry I'm being so emotional I'm sorry I can only talk to you when I'm drunk but that's the only time I'm brave enough to be honest with you and I want to kiss you I'm sorry but I do I want you to hold me like you used to when we didn't know any better because your hands were so warm and I am so ******* cold and I miss you and I'm drunk and I miss you and when I'm sober I hate you but it's only because you don't love me like I want you to

You said I was a god and I believed you
thought you would always pray to me
thought your devotion to me was eternal

called you crying because my word is divine
even between thunder storm sobs
called you a sinner because fear
is the root of fidelity

but I remember when you said you were an atheist
realized I was just as human as you
decided you didn't need my wrath
you walked through my fire
stole my halo
became your own savior
and now I am alone and godless

you were the only one to ever love me
but you have denounced your faith
and if God doesn't exist
then who the hell was I

I'm sorry I took your virginity, it's just that
I was so sad and we were so drunk and you were so eager,
and I kind of thought it was cute that it was your first time
and it kind of went to my head that you wanted me to be your first,
and you were warm when I was cold
and you were dry when I was drowning
and now I fear that I've chilled you and drug you into the water with me,
and do your bones ache like mine yet?

You left bruises on my thighs;
that's not a metaphor,
I have blue splotches where you held me
and I've never been ****** like that,
never been ****** like I was supposed to enjoy it.
You were the first person to ever care if I was comfortable,
you were the first person I ever laughed with during ***,
you were the first person I ever laid with afterwards
and you let me hold your hand and rest my head on your chest
and your heart was beating so hard
and the room was dark
until we had to find our clothes scattered on the floor,
and you laughed when I tried to hide myself
and I guess it's just easier for me to show myself when the lights are off,
when you can't see my scars,
Jesus Christ I hope you didn't see my scars,
those are the only piece of myself I care about keeping private.

You dropped me off at home later
and as I got out of the car you thanked me and I just laughed
because I didn't know how to say that
I don't want you to think of it as a favor,
I didn't ******* out of pity,
I ****** you out of loneliness and ***** and cold hands,
and I'm sorry I took your virginity but you were the best I ever had.

I keep writing these poems
emptying my chest onto paper
thinking somehow
this will make it feel less hollow
thinking someday
these words won't be so tortured
but every scratch of pen
every patch of black or blue
covering something that just
didn't fit right
looks so vacant
and everything I say
is starting to sound the same
I am pulling words from a thesaurus
trying to rephrase the ache
into something I haven't felt before
trying to justify
why I haven't been able to fix this yet
talking myself into a fire
this ink is gasoline
and combustion
is something I am all too familiar with